by B. J Daniels
The narrow road ran along the sharp backbone of a rocky ridge, erosion eating away at its edges, which dropped precariously down vertical coulees thick with giant scrub juniper and tangled copses of cedar.
Hank had never been on a road more remote or desolate. He half expected a chunk of the earth to break off and drop away, taking them with it. He was beginning to think that Lucas didn’t have a clue where they were—let alone that this was a back road to the location they’d been given. Charlotte couldn’t be out here.
He did his best to ignore the fact that a hired killer was in the backseat holding a gun on Lucas. He had to concentrate on driving. But his mind reeled. What did Rena have planned? Clearly she could have killed him back down the road. But she wanted something more. Him to suffer? The people around him to suffer? Thank God Arlene wasn’t with him—and she would have been if he’d had his way. He’d wanted her near, thinking he could comfort her, protect her.
As the road started to fall way toward the river bottom, he caught the dim light of a house in the distance.
Lucas must have seen it, too. Hank could almost hear the young man’s mind at work. The kid was going to do something stupid. Lucas was young, already had regrets when it came to Charlotte. And he was a fearless kid who Hank figured didn’t always consider the consequences.
Hank wanted to warn Lucas not to do whatever it was he was thinking of doing, but he didn’t dare call attention to the kid. It would only give Rena the edge when Lucas ignored whatever he said and did whatever crazy thing he had in mind.
As they topped a small rise, Hank heard a soft click. Before either he or Rena could react, the passenger-side door swung open and Lucas threw himself out, disappearing over the edge of the road to drop into darkness and nothingness down a steep ravine.
The SUV couldn’t have been going more than ten miles an hour at the time because of the road. The kid fell off the backbone of the ridge. If the fall didn’t kill him, Rena sure as hell would.
Hank had hit the gas the moment he heard the click of the door opening, throwing Rena off balance. She got off one shot, the boom inside the SUV drowning out most of her expletive.
In his business, Hank had learned to never pass up an opportunity, especially one when it looked as if things were going to hell in a hand-basket. Gas pedal to the floor, he jerked the wheel toward the drop-off to the right, grabbed his door handle and bailed.
He knew Rena would anticipate the move. She did. She got off another shot. As he hit the hard ground, tumbling head over heels down the steep slope, he felt a searing pain in his side. But that pain was quickly forgotten as he careened downward through a thick stand of junipers, the limbs scraping, scratching and jabbing as he continue to plummet down the coulee.
In the distance he heard something large crashing through timber. His SUV.
Hank finally managed to grab a limb and stop falling through the blackness of the coulee. He lay for a moment, assessing the damage. The fall had tweaked his left shoulder and left him feeling beaten to hell.
But it was his side that had him most concerned. Although the bullet apparently hadn’t hit any vital organs, he’d lost quite a bit of blood. Bracing his feet against the base of one of the larger juniper trees, he took off his long-sleeved shirt, folded it and pressed it to his wound under this T-shirt.
That was the best he could do for the moment. Glancing back up the coulee, he could make out the line of the road above him, the sky a smidgen lighter above it.
He hadn’t fallen as far as he’d thought. Which was good, since it was going to be difficult climbing back up. Using the branches of the junipers and small cedars, he began to climb. He wondered where Lucas was. He hoped to hell the kid hadn’t broken his fool neck.
At least Lucas had been dressed in all leather. He probably hadn’t gotten as scraped up as Hank, blamed kid.
But it was Rena who Hank worried about as he topped the ridge. The road was empty. He listened, heard nothing human. He could see the light of the house just down the road.
He hesitated only a moment. He knew by following the open road down to the house he would be a sitting duck. But he had little choice given the terrain—and the ticking clock.
MEREDITH HAD ARLENE turn off the road onto a trail atop a ridge. Arlene had hunted some of this country with her father when she was younger, before her mother insisted she was too old for such foolishness. Hunters had made most of the roads trying to get to the Breaks, where there were elk, deer and antelope.
If she wasn’t wrong, this one was called the Middle Eighth Ridge on a topographical, but it was hard to tell. They all looked the same on a dark night. And it wasn’t as if there were signs out here. If you couldn’t read a map, you were lost.
Obviously Meredith could read a map.
The road switchbacked down a steep hill, and Arlene caught sight of water—a huge surface of dull silver. Fort Peck Reservoir, with a shoreline that was longer than the entire California coast.
Arlene felt her heart drop. Meredith wasn’t taking her to Charlotte. She was driving her out here to kill her. It would be months before some bow hunter found what was left of her remains. Animals would carry off most of the bones. After the vultures picked them clean.
Arlene glanced over at Meredith, thinking she would see this woman in hell first.
“Watch where you’re going!” Meredith snapped as Arlene hit a rut in the road, jarring them both as the SUV came down hard, the gun in her hand never wavering.
“You’d better hope my daughter and the baby are all right,” Arlene said, gripping the wheel tighter. “And that you’re really taking me to her.”
“Don’t make threats you can’t back up,” Meredith said with disinterest. “I’ve taken good care of your daughter and her unborn baby.”
“You can’t possibly think you can still get away with passing this baby off as your own,” Arlene said.
Just then she saw a light ahead in the distance. Was it possible Meredith had been telling the truth? She could make out a small log building. One of those hunting camps used during the season. Closed the rest of the year. Completely isolated.
The only thing Arlene could think was that no one would hear Charlotte’s cries. Or her own.
“Watch out!” Meredith bellowed.
Out of the corner of her eye Arlene saw a large dark figure lurch up onto the road. She hit the brakes as a body careened off the right front of Meredith’s fancy SUV and disappeared over the side of the road, into the darkness.
“Keep going,” Meredith ordered, shoving the barrel of the gun into her side hard enough to make Arlene gasp.
“But we just hit someone,” Arlene snapped.
“Drive. Think of your daughter.”
Sick to her stomach, Arlene put the SUV into first gear. The vehicle lurched forward.
Who had she just hit? She couldn’t believe someone else was out here. Her heart began to pound. Oh, God, what if it was Hank?
“Stop here,” Meredith ordered as they reached a wide spot.
Arlene could see the log structure in the distance. If Charlotte was in there and they were this close…
“Stop!” Meredith ordered, jabbing her again with the gun barrel. “Now get out. You can walk from here.”
She couldn’t see any vehicles. Just an outside light. Arlene feared Meredith would shoot her once she stepped from the vehicle, but what choice did she have? If there was even a chance that Charlotte was down there…
She put the SUV into Park, pulled up the emergency brake and, unsnapping her seat belt, climbed out.
Meredith quickly slid over behind the wheel and, without another look, turned the SUV around and took off back the way they’d come.
Confused, Arlene looked up the road they’d come down, thinking of the person she’d hit.
A blood-curdling scream rose from the darkness below her. Charlotte. Arlene took off running toward the sound.
HANK HEARD THE scream. He was almost to the lit building, all
his senses on alert. He’d seen where his SUV had left the road, the tracks in the soft earth, the bright-skinned bark of the closest juniper. But it was too dark to tell where the SUV had finally landed. Or if Rena had gotten out before it crashed over the side.
He stopped. The whine of a vehicle engine carried on the breeze, and he thought he saw lights through the trees on another ridge in the distance. But the lights were headed in the opposite direction. Someone leaving?
He quickened his pace. The loss of blood made him feel light-headed. He pressed his now-soaked shirt to his side and kept moving.
A small log cabin came into view, rising up out of the darkness and trees. It sat precariously on the edge of the Breaks, overlooking Fort Peck Reservoir, the dull dark sky reflected in the water far below. A dense copse of ponderosa pines flanked the building on three sides.
Hank headed for the trees, weapon in hand. A breeze stirred the pine boughs, making them emit a low, mournful moan. A few stars broke free of the clouds. Silence settled around him.
He didn’t know where Lucas had gone, and that worried him. Nor could he see Rena.
He hadn’t gone far when he saw the red minivan parked in the pines. No sign of Meredith Foster’s silver SUV, though, he noted with concern. Was that who he’d seen driving away?
Hank was to the cabin when he felt the presence in the darkness. An instant later the cold steel of the barrel was pressed to his back. He froze.
“You know how this has to end,” Rena said quietly behind him. Her voice held no emotion, but she seemed to be breathing hard, and he suspected she’d been injured. That would only make her more dangerous—if that was possible.
“So what are you waiting for? Shoot me. End it.” A breeze stirred the pines nearby, a whisper in the dark. He could smell dust from the vehicle that had left and the unmistakable scent of water close by.
In the distance a flock of geese made an inky ebony vee across the night sky, their soft honks barely audible over the thud of his heart in his ears.
Hadn’t he always known this was how it would end for him? Just a few more feet, though, and he would have been inside the cabin. He could hear Charlotte’s screams of pain. He felt his gut clench with fear for Charlotte and her baby. His pain was about to end. But hers…
ARLENE WAS ALMOST to the cabin when she caught movement by the door. While she couldn’t make out any more than the shapes of two people, she could almost feel the tension in the night air. She slipped into the shadow of the building and held her breath.
One of the figures spoke. A woman, her voice low, sounding almost pained. But it was the second figure’s voice that sent a chill skittering up her spine. Hank. So that hadn’t been him on the road.
Her relief was short-lived as his words registered. He’d just told the woman to kill him.
Rena? The woman Hank had told her about?
Arlene’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough that she could make out a woodpile behind her against the side of the building. She eased back to it, quietly lifting one of the more manageable logs into her hands, then she worked her way along the side of the building to the corner again.
The sound of her movements was hidden by her daughter’s cries of pain inside the cabin. With each, Arlene felt her heart break. Charlotte was still in labor, having a rough time of it. Arlene desperately needed to reach her daughter’s side.
The only thing blocking her way was a hired killer.
“This is between you and me,” Hank was saying. “I don’t want anyone else hurt.”
“You and me?” The woman let out a humorless laugh. “There is no you and me. Not anymore.”
“You went to the other side,” Hank said. “You knew the price. You knew who would be coming after you.”
“Indeed, I did. That is why I’m still alive.”
“Rena…”
Arlene didn’t dare wait a moment longer. She rounded the corner quickly, the log clutched tightly in both hands as she swung at the smaller figure.
The woman sensed her at the last moment—but not quickly enough.
HANK HAD SEEN ARLENE come down the hill. He’d desperately wanted to cry out a warning for her to go back, but he knew her better than that. She had to get to her daughter. And Arlene wasn’t one to back down just because the going had gotten rough.
He reacted the moment she made her move. He spun around, going for the gun, knowing that Rena would have heard the movement behind her. That she would be half turned.
There was a flare of light, an ear-splitting boom and a shower of splinters as the bullet tore through the log in Arlene’s hands. But the shot didn’t slow down Arlene’s swing. The log struck Rena, knocking her into the side of the cabin.
Inside the house came an instant of silence, followed by Charlotte’s screams.
The second boom followed swiftly behind the first. This time the shot went wild because Hank was on Rena, fighting for the gun. The third shot was muffled, followed by a groan, then silence.
Hank didn’t realize he was all that was holding Rena up until she let go of the gun. Those amazing green eyes of hers met his gaze. She smiled, nodding slightly, as she dropped to her knees, blood blossoming from her chest and streaming down her face from a head wound she must have gotten when she’d jumped from the SUV before it went over the ridge.
She fell to her side, and he saw that the head wound wasn’t her only injury. There was a jagged tear in her leg that showed bone. He knew that revenge had been the only thing keeping her standing those last few minutes of her life.
Hank moved quickly to shield Arlene from the corpse, looping an arm around her as he opened the cabin door and, stepping through, drew her in after him. He could feel his side, knew it was bleeding again. He fought the light-headedness. Just a little longer…
ARLENE COULD HEAR Charlotte as Hank ushered her inside the cabin, making sure there was no one waiting to ambush them. The first room was empty. Charlotte’s cries were coming from down a short hallway. A light bled out onto the floor from an open doorway.
Arlene practically launched herself at the light. Hank tried to keep in front of her, but her need to reach her daughter was suddenly so urgent, so primal….
She could hear the soft, encouraging murmur of voices in between Charlotte’s moans and cries of pain.
As she and Hank reached the doorway, he motioned for her to wait. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done, but rationally she knew what they did in the next few minutes could be a matter of life and death.
One look at his face as he peered into the room and all reason left her. She rounded the edge of the doorway to find two Hispanic women, one at the foot of the bed and the other at the head, near Charlotte.
Arlene had been prepared to see her daughter tied to a bed. Held at gunpoint. Or worse.
Instead the room had been prepared much like a hospital room. Charlotte was propped up, her feet splayed. Delores, the younger of the Hispanic women, was holding the girl’s hand, offering words of support in her broken English. She looked up as Arlene entered the room but didn’t seem surprised to see her.
“She’s my daughter,” Arlene said as she rushed to Charlotte’s bedside.
The other Hispanic woman at the end of the bed gave her and Hank only a glance and went back to what she’d been doing.
“I’m here,” Arlene said as Charlotte burst into tears.
“Mama!” she cried. “Mama.”
Arlene hugged her daughter. “It’s okay, baby,” she said, smoothing back Charlotte’s long blond hair from her damp face.
The older woman snapped something in Spanish. Delores translated, “She needs to push with the next contraction.”
Arlene nodded and turned to her daughter. “You can do this.”
Charlotte was crying and shaking her head. “You have to get me to a hospital. Something is wrong.”
“Listen to me,” Arlene said, taking her daughter’s face in her hands. “Women have given birth for centuries. In the m
iddle of fields. In the backs of cars. This woman knows what she’s doing. It will be over soon. You have to do as she says.”
Charlotte’s sobs lessened as another contraction began, making her suck in her breath.
“Push,” Arlene ordered. She glanced toward the woman at the foot of the bed, hoping Meredith had been right. That there wasn’t anything wrong. That these women knew what they were doing. Because it was too late, the hospital too far away. Getting a doctor here was out of the question.
“You’re doing great,” Arlene said to her daughter as Charlotte let out a pained breath and sagged back on the bed.
Delores translated again from the older woman. “She must push very hard at the next contraction.”
Arlene nodded. “You did great, Charlotte. It won’t be long now.”
Her daughter actually smiled at that. Charlotte looked older but none the worse for wear. Apparently Meredith had taken good care of her.
Another contraction seized her and she bent forward, gripping Arlene’s hand as she pushed.
The woman at the end of the bed said something in Spanish.
“What?” Arlene demanded.
“She can see the baby’s head.”
Everything happened quickly after that. Arlene was only vaguely aware of Hank in the room. Or that at some point Lucas had come in looking scraped up and limping. Arlene didn’t put it together that he’d been the person she’d clipped with Meredith’s SUV. She didn’t question what he was doing here or how he’d gotten here or where he’d been. Her only thoughts were with her daughter.
Arlene concentrated on her daughter, feeling each pain as intensely as Charlotte did.
And suddenly, at the end of a long contraction, the baby was expelled. Hank, she saw, had stepped forward to offer his assistance, grabbing some clean towels piled on a table next to the bed.
The older woman gently laid the infant into the thick white towels that Hank held out to her, while the younger woman worked to bind off the cord.
As the baby began to cry, an angry full-lunged howl, Arlene finally let herself feel. Like the baby, she began to cry. Charlotte, exhausted, had tears in her eyes, as well, as she lay back in the bed.
